ALCHEMICAL ALEMBIC AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

The moment of crisis holds potential, like a tender seed. In the light of recent dramatic shifts in our world: a global pandemic, socio-political unrest, and ecocide, how do we navigate these tumultuous times and respond both individually and in community? Alchemy not only provides a symbolic expression and language that describes how crisis catalyzes a psychological process, but also offers a way to relate with and contain powerful energies of change.

Through alchemy, C. G. Jung understood that the real alchemical work begins in the inner world, where the process transforms the structure of our psyche, turning lead into gold. Enlivening this light within us, reciprocally awakens the light within nature — the lumen naturae as the alchemists called it, and the light of the Anima Mundi — the feminine Soul of the World, essential to the work.

In exploring the importance and role of the feminine and the valuing of women needed in our present time in deep relationship, in coniunctio, with the masculine, we will look to socio-political, scientific, and ecological movements that illustrate how alchemy gives us the light to see from a new perspective that can nurture the seeds of true transformation and benefit the whole.